Use practical methods to control nerves and anxiety – develop higher levels of confidence and credibility

Command a room, hold attention and create a high impact

Audience

Anyone who has to make sales presentations.

Format

This is a highly interactive one-day course, focusing very much on learning by doing and designed for a maximum group size of 8. It can be built around your own materials (eg, using your own Powerpoint house style or based around a relatively standard company presentation as part of a sales pitch).

Each element of the course includes:

High-quality training presentation

Group exercises and team activities

High degree of participation and interaction

The course includes regular discussion, planning and other practical exercises to develop and practise the skills and methods presented. The presentations and exercises will be tailored to specific situations from participants’ work. The style is up-beat and motivational.

The expert trainer

Graham has been designing and delivering high-quality training programmes on management techniques, personal development, sales and customer service for many years. A top-performing sales professional, he was Managing Director of Sales Productivity and Development for Thomson Financial, helping develop a large European sales force, and now runs his own very successful training consultancy.

His work has taken him all over the world and involved him in working closely with hundreds of different organisations from all business sectors, his client list including such organisations as BT, Vodafone, AT&T, Orange, Pfizer, GSK, Boots, Unilever, American Express, Thomas Cook, Apple, Sony, Motorola, Cisco, MFI, Barclays Bank, LIFFE, Abbey National, Prison Service, Home Office, Law Society, BBC, Daimler-Chrysler, Citroen, Weetabix, Nikon, Shell and many, many others. In addition he has written over twenty books published in several different countries, including Companies don’t succeed – people do!,90 Brain Teasers for Trainers, Customer Service Games for Training, Sales Training Games, Telephone Tactics and Working Smarter.

Known internationally as both a trainer and a popular motivational speaker, he believes that effective learning has to be interactive and challenging. All his learning events are built around practical exercises, role play and case studies. His training style focuses not on just explaining new ideas or developing new skills, but also on motivating people to use them and to develop themselves as individuals. This approach gets results, as the following comments from course participants show:

‘Brilliant course, really interesting and very focused to my job role and day to day work.’

‘Took away some very good ideas that I can use every day… good examples too.’

‘Very confident in the subject, and amusing too. Made the course very interesting. A very clear sales model to use going forward.’

‘Full of useful hints and tips which I will apply to my job.’

‘Extremely well presented and structured’

‘A very intensive course and a lot of concrete tools provided.’

‘Useful data, tools and insights; engaging and interesting as always.’

‘Very good… contained everything we do on a regular basis and problems we have come across… the exercises made it very interesting too.’

Workshop outline

1 Introduction

Personal objectives

Key messages and learning objectives of the workshop

2 Persuasive presentation skills

What does good look like?

Exercise: Characteristics of high/low impact presentations

Presenting yourself as a ‘winner’

The energy / attitude model

Exercise: Being a winner

3 Introducing the eight-step model

The magic circle

How to ‘assume the role’ when presenting

The eight steps

4 Step 1 – develop your objectives

The five questions that you must answer before preparing your presentation

Defining your objectives and outcomes

Creating a first draft

Step 1 exercise

5 Step 2 – analyse your audience

Doing your homework: audience, event, venue

Developing a pre-event check-list

Methods and means for researching your audience

Step 2 exercise

6 Step 3 – structure the main body of your presentation

Ways to structure your presentation for maximum impact

Balancing and managing content and topics

Organising your information: 6 options and methods

Step 3 exercise

7 Step 4 – state the main ideas

Ways to structure your presentation for maximum impact

Your ‘one main point’ and creating a 30-second summary

Step 4 exercise

8 Step 5 – decide on supporting information, using the toolkit

Making your case convincing: ways to support your claims

Selecting and using relevant and interesting examples

Quotes, case studies and printed material

Presenting statistics, tables and graphs

Ways of maintaining visual interest

Transitions and links, creating a ‘golden thread’

Step 5 exercise: Creating compelling stories and anecdotes

9 Step 6 – create an effective ‘opening’

Claiming the stage and creating a good first impression

The three most powerful ways of opening a presentation

The five elements of a strong opening

Step 6 exercise: Participants work individually to prepare an opening, focusing on personal introduction, and then deliver to the group, with structured feedback

10 Step 7 – develop transitions

Step 7 exercise / examples

11 Step 8 – create an effective close

Signalling and sign-posting; the importance of, and how to do it effectively

Five ways to close a presentation successfully

Step 8 exercise / examples

12 Presentation design and Powerpoint

Presentation design and Powerpoint

An interactive review of participants’ own real-life past presentations and advanced tips and techniques on using Powerpoint effectively